Experience as a Flashlight: I can make all the resolutions I want, but they really have no connection with me.    I live in the real world.  Say, for example, I resolve that I am not going to eat any cookies during all of 2013 or I am going to lose 15 pounds this year.  Wow!  That sounds so good and makes me feel like I am a really good person with great aspirations for self-improvement.  However, to make those resolutions a reality, they need to penetrate my will which is not that easy.

I can say I am not going to do something, but the true test comes in the moment I am deciding to go ahead with it or not.  Then, all kinds of other thoughts can become part of the debate (eg I really want to do that.  I don’t feel like doing this).  Too often these feelings have voices much louder than the resolutions written in a diary or a blog somewhere.  Resolutions have no little or no connection with me in my life.

Furthermore, resolutions make a huge assumption about the future, mainly that I will have one.  Who knows?  I only have this present moment to be who I would like to be.  The past doesn’t have to control it.  The future goals don’t have to weigh me down.

Where the real action takes place is in my will in any given moment.  In the twelve step programs they have a slogan which says “one day at a time.”  That sounds good, but I actually prefer “one moment at a time.”  This  moment is all I ever have in which to think and act.  I want to do all those things which will improve my character, but the only way I can reach them is by baby steps taken right now using any grace that comes from God and from others.